Well, that is nice. I hate the sound of my computer. All is loud, fans, hard drives, cd drives. I would like to have passive coolers too! But they are extremely expensive here too. But is worst, I like to play with music and I record offen. I have a nice condenser mic, but I need a very long cable to avoid the computer noise .

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"There is a concept which corrupts and upsets all others. I refer not to Evil, whose limited realm is that of ethics; I refer to the infinite."Jorge Luis Borges, Avatars of the Tortoise. --Jumalauta!!

For a number of years my only computer was a Pentium 2: No case. Motherboard and components sitting on the floor on top of a piece of cardboard. Every single fan clipped off. . . HDD in an enclosure. . . Never gave me any trouble. . . or noise. How i miss it! *sniff, sniff*

I buy my computers used. They're much cheaper, and to this date i haven't had any problems with them. And, of course, old hardware has been around for a while, which makes support, compatibility, etc, easier.

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“Our very lives depend on the ethics of strangers, and most of us are always strangers to other people.” -- Bill Moyers

A problem I have with most laptops is the use of black or dark-colored keyboards. I like to rely on ambient light in my house, and this light isnt sufficient to illuminate letters on a black keyboard, since black reflects very little light. In contrast, a beige, silver, or light-colored keyboard reflects sufficient light from the room to provides its own illumination, and doesnt require direct lighting.

Consequently, I must have near perfect lighting to see the letters on the black keyboard of a typical laptop, the best illumination being direct lighting which is undesired. USB lights are a response to this illumination problem on a black keyboard. OTOH, I can read letters on a beige keyboard in a dimly lit room because the lighter color reflects more light and provides better illumination and contrast for the black letters.

(from the first post) "..I hate looking at an LCD and all the power sucking programs running in the background.."

I'm sure it's been suggested here that you can configure Vista, much like XP, to run as fast as you want it to. I'vetweaked Vista Premium on this Acer Aspire to run blazingly fast, mainly following suggestions at Black Viper'swebsite and at various other "windows/vista tweaking/tips and tricks" sites.

It's simple, step-by-step stuff to get the bloat and adware and (some!) unnecessary security and backgroundservices, etc out of operation so that your laptop OS is quick and responsive.

But of course, I finally purchased a spare hard drive so that I can run Vector when I feel like it, too.

(from the first post) "..I hate looking at an LCD and all the power sucking programs running in the background.."

I'm sure it's been suggested here that you can configure Vista, much like XP, to run as fast as you want it to. I'vetweaked Vista Premium on this Acer Aspire to run blazingly fast, mainly following suggestions at Black Viper'swebsite and at various other "windows/vista tweaking/tips and tricks" sites.

It's simple, step-by-step stuff to get the bloat and adware and (some!) unnecessary security and backgroundservices, etc out of operation so that your laptop OS is quick and responsive.

But of course, I finally purchased a spare hard drive so that I can run Vector when I feel like it, too.

Well it is nice to get so much input. I agree with the posts that state clueless operators run a lot of security they do not need. This is my daughters first computer and no one touches it. She feels the need at this point to run all the Norton Security programs. If it were mine I would also do away with most of the programs running in the background. I have not used Windows for probably ten years and have got used to not needing such stuff. I hear only horror stories from other users about spyware invading system and such. I myself had never had a virus.........check that ..I did have one attached to and email once.

I have not played with the desktop on my daughters computer or I would get all the trash off it. I find my linux distros (currently SOHO 5. much cleaner and easier to use. My wife has even become a convert. All she has at work is Win2000.

If you are a graphics student then it is only Mac for you and LCD's do not render enough colors so CRT's are the only way to go. I find resolution on LCD's lacking. I must admit though I have only seen Windows systems on LCD's and I think Linux renders better anyway.

These are my opinions only and management is not responsible for content.

Some good advise here! My mother in laws laptop has Norton's and some other bloat that completely slows down startup. Her "subscriptions" have expired so they aren't any use (she won't be able to afford to renew them right now). Yet they still have to load up. I've been itching for the chance of ripping that crap out of the laptop. Now is my chance since freeware is available.

A problem I have with most laptops is the use of black or dark-colored keyboards. I like to rely on ambient light in my house, and this light isnt sufficient to illuminate letters on a black keyboard, since black reflects very little light. In contrast, a beige, silver, or light-colored keyboard reflects sufficient light from the room to provides its own illumination, and doesnt require direct lighting.

Consequently, I must have near perfect lighting to see the letters on the black keyboard of a typical laptop, the best illumination being direct lighting which is undesired. USB lights are a response to this illumination problem on a black keyboard. OTOH, I can read letters on a beige keyboard in a dimly lit room because the lighter color reflects more light and provides better illumination and contrast for the black letters.

I've been itching for the chance of ripping that crap out of the laptop...

Well said. I get a lot of requests to tune up slow Windows systems and the first thing I do is remove Norton/Symantec stuff and install the apps suggested by nubcnubdo above. The latter is just way too resource intensive, invasive and expensive. Everything software should not be!

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"As people become more intelligent they care less for preachers and more for teachers". Robert G. Ingersoll